Single-cell omics is transforming our understanding of cell biology and disease, yet the systems-level analysis and interpretation of single-cell data faces many challenges. In this Perspective, we describe the impact that fundamental concepts from statistical mechanics, notably entropy, stochastic processes and critical phenomena, are having on single-cell data analysis. We further advocate the need for more bottom-up modelling of single-cell data and to embrace a statistical mechanics analysis paradigm to help attain a deeper understanding of single-cell systems biology.

中文翻译：

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统计力学遇上单细胞生物学

单细胞组学正在改变我们对细胞生物学和疾病的理解，但单细胞数据的系统级分析和解释面临许多挑战。在这篇《观点》中，我们描述了统计力学的基本概念，尤其是熵、随机过程和临界现象，对单细胞数据分析的影响。我们进一步提倡需要对单细胞数据进行更多自下而上的建模，并采用统计力学分析范式，以帮助更深入地了解单细胞系统生物学。